Have you ‘google tested’ your youth ministry?

A few months back I was invited to speak on pioneering youth work projects in a small city. Before I got there, I did what I call ‘the switched on parent test’. I googled a bunch of words and phrases a parent might do when moving to a new area to find stuff on for their kids.

In this particular city, the best any church or faith based project did in response to my search terms was page six of google’s results.

Now that google uses far more accurate location-driven alorithms, we’re not fighting the global web of information quite as hard. With this in mind, search engine optimisation (or SEO) is no longer a mind-boggling pit of despair! Just having clear, consistent information on websites and social media is enough for your work to show up in local searches.

So does it?

I challenge you – right this minute – to ‘google test’ your project. Don’t google the name or building of your project; instead do some cold searches that a parent might do when moving to your area.

So, for instance – using say, Blackpool, as the example – try (with your own town) each version of:

  • [Youth / children’s / young people’s / teenage / teenager / school aged / kid’s] clubs in Blackpool
  • [Youth / children’s / young people’s / teenage / teenager / school aged / kid’s] work in Blackpool
  • [Youth / children’s / young people’s / teenage / teenager / school aged / kid’s] projects in Blackpool
  • [Youth / children’s / young people’s / teenage / teenager / school aged / kid’s] organisations in Blackpool
  • [Youth / children’s / young people’s / teenage / teenager / school aged / kid’s] hang outs in Blackpool
  • [Youth / children’s / young people’s / teenage / teenager / school aged / kid’s] sports clubs in Blackpool
  • Things to do for [Youth / children’s / young people’s / teenage / teenager / school aged / kid’s] in Blackpool
  • Where can I send my [Youth / children’s / young people’s / teenage / teenager / school aged / kid’s] in Blackpool

etc.

Does your church or youth project feature on the first two search results pages? If not, it’s time to make some changes! Here’s just few things you can do:

Make sure you have web presence. This might mean a website or blog, but almost certainly (for parents) it means a Facebook page or group. Make sure that all your sites and accounts point back to each other.

Utilise other web presence. Submit your information to the council, school online bulletins, local ‘what’s on’ social media groups, and of course church websites.

Update regularly, or at least consistently. Google knows how to pick up on sites that don’t have activity, and they shift them down the rankings. Make sure you are adding regular updates; ideally weekly. At very least, try and do updates at the same time each time (eg. lunchtime on a Friday every fortnight).

Share, share, share! Have your friends, followers, and team regularly share your updates, or tag you in on their own. Keep conversations moving, and always respond to comments (even if it’s just ‘thank you’).

Stay safe. Make sure you’re aware of best safeguarding practices around young people online, and have the correct permissions to share photos/videos of young people.

Keep your eye out. The google test can also find places where people are already talking about you, but you didn’t know. Maybe there are complaints, questions, or reviews on forums or sharing sites. I once discovered we had a tripadvisor site this way! Engage with these spaces, and point them back to yours.

Caveat – it’s not the only way!

Of course google isn’t the only way to tell parents about what you’ve got going on, and none of this really speaks to telling the young people themselves. However, why not make the best of every opportunity?

A switched on parent who is moving to a new area – or have kids about to start secondary school – are going to be searching for ways to connect their children with organisations and groups. Let’s at least be part of the menu they’re selecting from!

 

Photo by Agnieszka Boeske on Unsplash

How to write better blog posts

This will be a somewhat relative post, as all blogs are different. They have different readers and serve different purposes. For blogs like this one though, where you are trying to offer a genuine digital service, along with sound advice, thought provoking stories, and solidarity for like-minded people, making the effort to raise the bar is – I think – a noble pursuit.

I know the title of this post is going to be treated with a healthy amount of scepticism, but considering the amount of nonsense I’ve written, and the many, many mistakes that I’ve made, I feel like I can add a few dots of wisdom to the topic.

I started blogging almost 15 years ago, and at the time it was just a way of interacting with other students at my theology college. My posts tended to be long-winded, poorly written, over detailed, badly structured, filled with reactionary content, and peppered with incendiary commenting.

Since then I’ve made a lot of effort to carefully cultivate a readership, be more specific in my focuses, and generous with my platform. For those of you who have followed me for a long time, I hope you agree that this is a far better blog that It once was.

This post has been prompted by three people who kindly emailed and specifically asked me this question over the last few weeks. I said I would write something on it, so here it is.

There are many ‘how to write better’ posts already out there, so this just contains a few ideas that I personally have had to work hard on. I hope one or two might be useful!

Take it seriously

Readers are people first. My job is to engage with them as human beings and not click numbers.

I have quite a detailed a profile in my mind of a fictional, yet believable person who I’m writing to before I begin to plan each post. This isn’t always the same person but does tend to be one of three or four that I regularly think of. At very least I remember that my reader is not me.

This means that I take great care in how I research a post, how I structure it, the language I choose, its length, and its anecdotes. I try to be person specific.

Also, because I see blogging as a genuine part of my ministry, I invest in it. I pay for a self-hosted WordPress account, domain name, and template, and I take time off in the year to properly design and renovate the site.

Know your USP

‘USP’ or unique selling point, is basically a tool to help you remember what it is that makes you distinct. Your unique voice online should flow out of your unique personality. What place does your voice have in the wider conversation? No blog can be the complete word on any subject, but it can still have a clearly recognisable voice.

YouthWorkHacks tries to be a bridge between theoretical and practical youth work. Its place is to push the boundaries of theory into real application, and to challenge practices to engage more critically with their philosophical roots.

This is why the ‘voice’ of YouthWorkHacks requires pure practitioners to reach deeper for foundations, and pure theorists to reach a wider for applications. Hence the moto: ‘reaching further in youth work.’

As I’m both a practitioner and an academic, this suits me well. Some blogs are more resource driven, and some are more abstract. What’s your USP voice in the conversation – what do you bring that’s distinct?

Critically engage

Postgraduate marking criteria always mentions critical engagement. This is the ability to look at one issue from several angles, including perspectives that you might not agree with. The best posts follow this same principle; softening highly rhetorically or reactionary language in favour of genuine discussion.

When critiquing, the critically engaged post tries to see the context in which something is framed, it looks for the extraneous threads that pull on the central idea, and it knows the best arguments against its own position.

Rather than, ‘Person A said something stupid,’ how about ‘Person A has presented this idea, which is consistent with their other works in “these” ways, but it’s probably based in “X” particular context. Person B has a slightly different approach, which contrasts with Person A in the “following ways”. I think Person B makes the more lucid argument for “these following reasons”, and I would apply that in “these ways”.’ This is longer, but it gives far more content and it outgrows our own opinions.

Provide more than just problems

Plenty of blog posts don’t go beyond an observation of something they don’t like. If you think something is missing, or ethically wrong, or dangerous, then say so, but say why, and say what you think needs to happen in response.

A blog that only focuses on problems tends to be written as an exercise in catharsis. The focus becomes the writer and not what is said. When several blogs do this, they become an echo chamber, rehashing the same problems without solutions, and reframing the same issues without acknowledging hope. A post that says, ‘I saw this and it sucks’ without any more evaluation will always leave me wanting, and will probably mean that I won’t return to that blog again.

I want my blog to be a place of positivity and kindness, but without losing the reality of genuine struggles. It’s entirely possible to do both, but you have to plan, research, reflect, and write with more care and attention that just ‘sticking up a post.’

Blogs can’t square every circle, and they shouldn’t try to fix things that should be grieved over, but they can still provide a unique view, or an abstract set of ‘maybe if’ ideas.

Write better

This is such an obvious thing to say but good content requires a working vehicle to deliver it. When I read a post that clearly hasn’t been proofread, then I feel disrespected as a reader.

You don’t have to be Shakespeare to make sure that you have full stops in the right place, or capital letters for names.

I’m not a naturally gifted writer, instead I have to work very hard at it. This is why I tend to proof read my posts the day after I write them – and obviously before I post them. I also use tools like Grammarly and PaperRater – and I write my posts first into Word, rather than the blog wizard. Personally, I’m terrible at using inconsistent tenses, run-on sentences, and using words like ‘simply’ over repetitively. I use passive voice too much, and I write too much like I talk.

If you are a writer, then you must also be an editor. This is about serving the reader. My wife explains it this way; ‘Tim, you need to take me by the hand and walk me through each point, don’t assume that I’ll just get it.’

Pray more

Pray before you post. Pray for the message, the content, the readers, and for the people those readers work with.

As a ministry, commit it to God in the same way you would anything else.

If what you actually want to do is journal, then journal instead. If, however, you are advertising a public blog and producing content that shapes and informs people’s lives in ministry, then give it that same attention you would if those people were in the room with you.

Pray like you mean it, like you respect it, and like you want it to genuinely serve.

Thanks folks. I hope you found something helpful in there. I don’t always get these right (in fact, some times I get none of these right!) but they’re all well worth the effort and the time.

 

Blogging on the Sabbath – a call to digital rest.

“If you can’t take a nap, if you can’t take a day off, heaven’s going to drive you nuts.” [Mark Driscoll]

I first heard the concept of an ‘electric sabbath’ from Rob Bell during his drops like stars tour. The idea was to have an entire digital shutdown one day a week: No phone, no internet, no email, no streaming.

For some of us, myself included, this feels like shutting down a significant portion of our lives. We are left weightless and wallowing, bumping into walls while we try to remember the basic human mechanics of being AFK (let the nerd understand).

Our digital worlds have become a significant space for intellectual, emotional and social stimuli, and as such we move around them with both personality and identity. We leave digital fingerprints.

These digital fingerprints are unique, because they have been cultivated daily – perhaps even hourly – as some form of organic representation of who we are in this parallel online word. However accurate that representation is, and however tangible we believe that world to be are disputable, but no less a reality. We have basically created an extra limb – one that pulls to us when we don’t use it.

As a blogger with a reasonable online presence, this pulls at me in the ‘waking world’ with quite some insistence.

The refresh button and revisiting the same social media walls becomes an almost unconscious activity. I’ve had whole days when I have neglected the needs of my spirit, family, and work, because my head had been firmly wired into an unguarded twitter comment.

So, I suggest a pact. Let’s give ourselves a digital sabbath. A day away from the crawling needs and desires of our digital realm. I suggest a fast, a time when we climb down from our fickle electric thrones and embrace the wholeness of the world without it.

The irony of this post is that I’m writing it on a Sunday morning. In 45 minutes, I’ll be preaching. Wouldn’t this time have been better spent by… praying, meditating, preparing, talking to my wife, eating breakfast (you fill in the gap).

Growing in closeness to God requires some care taken over spiritual disciplines like praying and Bible reading. For spiritual disciplines to work, however, they require both spirit and discipline. Neither of these can be nurtured entirely without any level of sacrifice or – put another way – fasting.

A fast is saying no to something that our body or our ego needs, in order to recognise the level of dependency that we have in God.

When you’re sat in the office and it’s nearing lunchtime and your stomach is rumbling with anticipation, but then you suddenly remember that you’re fasting, a lead weight drops. You feel a sense of loss and almost desperation. This empty longing is a growth metaphor for how we need to long for God. That’s why fasting exists. We use that feeling and turn it into prayers of dependence on and recognition of who God is – and who we would be without Him.

I have a small, A5 presentation folder that I use for preaching. I’ve had it since I was first at Bible College and saw everyone else using them. I stopped using it almost ten years ago in favour of iPads and my MacBook (the Holy Spirit comes when there’s Apple products on stage right?) Recently, however, I rediscovered my little preaching folder and started using it again.

One of the reasons I use it now is the little inscription on the front page that I put there while in College. It says:

“You have offended God infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince – and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment.” [Jonathan Edwards, 1703 – 1757]

This is a heavy and somewhat brutal quote that says there is nothing apart from but God and His grace to uphold me  minute by minute. I am not my own, I was bought at a price, and it so important to me to reconnect with Him each day afresh. It’s important for me to recognise the depths from which He has saved me, and more the depths of need I have for Him each day.

That’s why we fast. That’s why we occasional withdraw.

The internet is noisy, and our digital fingerprints pull at us constantly. Perhaps a day off a week is not too much to ask to keep these things in check.

A digital sabbath. I think I might have a go!

 

 

A Youth Work Sabbatical on the Blog

Some of you have noticed that I disappeared for a while. I haven’t had a terrible accident, I’m not training to be a ninja and I’ve not discovered the joys of being a hermit.

I have been taking a blogging sabbatical.

This might just be a clever sounding way of saying ‘I’ve not been online for a wee bit,’ but it has been a healthy, albeit spontaneous online choice.

Why?

I’ve been blogging for about 10 years in various forms, but it was only in the last two that it started to make any traction. I was getting hits, subscribers and discussions going on social media, as well as having posts feature on bigger blogs around the world.

With all that extra attention came an unease with the shape and direction of my heart.

Time off from this allowed me to take perspective on who’s glory, who’s wisdom and who’s heart needs to be most clearly seen online.

Jesus tells Peter in Matthew 16:18 that HE will build His church. He would use Peter and even build on Peter, but Jesus is the master builder – not Peter.

I needed to make sure that my vision for the blog was to build his kingdom and not my empire.

I believe that coming back into my blog now – with the time behind me to take on that inventory – will allow Him to send me the readers that He wants whoever and how many that might be.

What Did I Do While ‘AFK’?

I didn’t really do anything different to what I normally would do. I carried on in my youth work job, developing my charity, training the team, ministering to and disciplining young people and seeking God generally.

I spent time with my wife, I ate good food, I went to events, spoke a at a few and I moved house. I also had three months of counseling – but that’s for another post!

What I didn’t do however was contribute to online discussion on matters of theology or youth ministry. I stayed off my blog. I occasionally came on to clear the spam and respond to messages, but that’s it.

How Did It Feel?

There were times when I was freaked out. The lack of spam filter meant that I became a coat rack for every single knock off Oakley’s glasses, Ugg boots and Justin Bieber supported product.

There were times reading other blogs and wanting to comment, wanting to add my own thoughts to the discussion. There were big things happening in the Christian world and the UK election but I was gagging to share on.

However generally it was an absolute head reboot. My thinking cleared, my time grew, and my space became a little bit more compartmentalised in the right ways. I was able to bring myself before God and take stock on who my identity is and how that matches up with my online identity.

That has been priceless.

So what now?

Well I’m back! I’m going to blog and write articles and continue where I left off. I might not publish three-five times a week (which was my pattern), but I will shoot for at least two. I will pray over every post I write, and seek God’s Holy Spirit to speak though me and to me in my approach the online arena. A few ideologies I will try to develop are:
– Writing more theologically, which is where my background, training and experience lies.
– Creating more resources that free and downloadable.
– Seeking more guest bloggers to write and be interviewed to broaden the net of experience and keep the conversation going.
– Transcribing training seminars and events that I’ve given over the last ten years to be in post format.

– Seeking more topics that encourage inclusivity, unity and networking.

What I’d like from you

Please keep me accountable! I want my heart to be God’s heart and build his kingdom rather than my empire. Please comment on posts, send messages, suggest topics and ask to be a guest blogger. I’d love for this blog experience to become less about me more about people with a heart for young people.

Thanks for taking the ride with me!

Tim

Viral Youth Ministry Part 1. Online Community IS Community

Social-media-for-public-relations1Ask FM, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter et al – the city gates of a new century. They are what coffee shops and pubs we’re to the generation before: the hub of community, gossip, news and living interactions with real people.
“Communities have social rules, cliques, groups, hierarchies, activities and spaces. You will find all of these in the villages of social media.”

About this time last year I ran a training day on how to juggle social media and child safeguarding in youth ministry. The aim was to dovetail the two together and empower youth workers to be involved in online spaces responsibly.

The session was a success and has since been highly requested, so I will attempt to unpack some of the presentation parts of it over the next few posts.

Part 1. Online Community IS Community.

Community is defined as the condition of gathering and sharing with real people with real attitudes and experiences. Communities have social rules, cliques, groups, hierarchies, activities and spaces. You will find all of these in the villages of social media.

The inter-connectivity of social media sites within themselves, with each other and with off-community internet sites through via sharing creates a very real social digital world. Social media spaces are villages with easy public transport between them. Your avatar travels, takes photos, has experiences and leaves marks. Avatars are born and die all the time, and are not always what you think.

Digital community relates to ‘natural’ community (that which is outside the online world) in three potential ways:

1. Digital Community as Extension of Natural Community

2. Digital Community as Distinct from Natural Community

3. Digital Community as Memorabilia of Natural Community

God loves community and it is his plan to see his community ideals put into effect everywhere that community springs up. Wee need to be his fellow workers, on His team to create this in the digital world that is flourishing.

1. Digital Community as Extension of Natural Community

A foot in both worlds might be another way of putting this. One has a natural community experience then continues it on through sharing in social interactions online. Or a friendship that blossoms through meeting in reality takes on new layers and depths through online interaction.
“Ask FM, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter et al – the city gates of a new century.”

Extension of natural community is a hi-tech way of sending notes, owning walkie-talkies or sharing scrapbooks on the life and experiences that happen to you and your friends.

This in the main is a relatively safe way of belonging to the Digital Community. It all comes down to balance – does the digital extend and supplement the natural, or is it the other way around?

For a youth group, a Facebook page is a great way of sharing memories, carrying on conversations, creating deeper friendships and advertising projects. This works as an extension of the youth group meeting in reality.

2. Digital Community as Distinct from Natural Community

This is perhaps where most unhealthy interactions with natural community crop us. Distinct is when one has a totally separate identity or life online from the one that is lived in reality.

Distinct online life be as simple as telling a few fibs to test some social waters or make yourself look cooler. It can however be as full blown as multiple personality disorder leading to a segregation of the self with some disastrous results. For instance, this is from where cyber self harm often originates.

When the two communities are thrust back together (like meeting someone in reality that you met online first) the pieces often don’t fit and at best expectations are let down and at worst you have situations that you read about in the news.

For a youth group, you can inadvertently create groups online that allow different characteristics of your members to surface unknowingly which can feel like you have an online group and a natural group of the same people but with different personalities. We need to manage and moderate content well and not be afraid to talk about the differences we see as a result.

Excursus: Digital Community as Replacement for Natural Community
In the worst case scenarios, distinct turns into replacement when again the balance shifts (just like in extension) and the individual starts to see the online world and persona as the real world and persona. For all intents and purposes they live online.

This is incredibly unhealthy as it bears all the marks of escapism and denial which can fester or awaken bipolar, mania, paranoia and other serious mental / social health difficulties.
“God loves community and it is his plan to see his community ideals put into effect everywhere that community springs up.”

3. Digital Community as Memorabilia of Natural Community

Remember the ‘find your classmates’ site? This was – for many of us in our late 20s and beyond – how social media began. Digital community can simply be a place to catch up without actually relating. You view pictures, and read what people are up to – and you share the same, but you don’t comment and you don’t seek responses. It is simply a bulletin board of memories and experiences.

For a youth group this is the safest (albeit most boring) community space to set up. A site that shares photos and stories of your group’s exploits but without having any real time, or roving avatar interactions.

All a Question of Balance

When it comes to online community you need to think balance. How do you as a youth worker keep the balance on the natural and the real, without diminishing or disregarding the digital. How do you keep a check on spaces that you manage to ensure that real interactions are happening safely and unmolested while creating boundaries that allow only appropriate interactions.

For me, this means 9 times out of 10 I use pages rather than groups. I have several adult moderators from within and outside the youth group structure within the spaces. I avoid personal spaces (like private chat) and I avoid off wall content. I keep a daily check on what is being posted and I call people out – in person, not online – for abusing the community space.

Next time – Social Media Spaces: from the playground to the bedroom, do you know where you are?

Avoiding Design Disasters in Youthwork PR

The youth work world contains a gauntlet of design disasters. Pursuing the average noticeboard takes more Ibuprofen than a serious man flu weekend.

Comic Sans, clipart, multi primary colours and more caps-italics than a Schwarzenegger trailer. This screams cheap, it screams fake and it screams don’t come here!

Substance is always more important than flash, but if you’re connecting with young people through visual PR then this is your first impression. If your first impression is cheesy and slapped together then you won’t get to make a second one. You can have the best substance in the world; terrific content, professional, relational ministry, but if the doorway looks like the gateway to a Teletubbies Convention then no one is coming in.

The good news is that you don’t need any professional skills. All you need is are few basic rules of thumb to create quality designs.

Colour Pallet

You should strictly stick to 2-5 colours. No more. And they should either harmonise with, or contrast against, the main colours.

The main colours (usually no more than 2) tend to be the background colour and the key feature (text or image) colour.

Look at the colour wheel below. A harmonising colour appears close to the original colour and a contrast colour appears directly opposite. So blue contrasts with yellow, green with orange etc.

Try new things – consider adding opacity to a colour rather than changing the tone for instance.

“A tool I use loads for colour picking is this: color.adobe.com. It’s really helpful in picking contrasting or harmonising colours, and gives the rgb and hex details too.” [Great tip form Nick F. Check out his blog here.]

White Space / Balance / Noise

The most noticeable part of a visual design is what you don’t see. Every element (that’s an image, piece of text, diagram etc.) should have space around it to breathe, and those spaces should be consistent throughout. We call this breathing space ‘white space’ and it is what gives your elements framing, context and proportion.

Balance is exactly that, if you have one corner heavy with text and nothing in the opposite corner, it’s going to unevenly weighted. You can balance with intentional space, or with another similar weighted (size/substance) element.

Noise is what you get when you don’t make use of white space or balance. You don’t know where you rest your eyes so you end up taking nothing in.

Fonts

The easiest way to kill a good piece of design is layer it up with fonts. There are three rules with fonts:

1. Don’t use more than 2-3, and they should match up somehow.

2. Make sure the font’s a readable and fit the theme/style/audience. Fonts go in and out of fashion. Look around at what current products and magazines are using as these will be recognisable to the people your shooting for.

3. Avoid unnecessarily formatting. Underlining tends to be a no-no 99% of the time. As does bubble text, word shapes and silly shadows.

To hit all three of these, consider one crisp modern font (like helvetica) and play with alternating bold and fine and playing with character justification.

Information

You should only have the information you really need on a visual. Ideally date, time, venue, basics etc. But you should always, absolutely have a way to find out more. QR codes are wonderful. Generate a free one here. Otherwise Facebook addresses, emails, phone number etc. Any ways to find out more. Keep it clear, keep it simple.

Surviving Camp With A Fully Charged Mobile Phone

Getting though summer camp with a fully charged mobile phone is like running down the side of a mountain with a dirty martini trying desperately not to spill it – good luck!

From hurrying up the tardy group member, to locating the mini bus, to checking in with concerned parents, every precious little bit of juice matters.

If you’re at something like Soul Survivor, finding a charging port can be the difference between going to the right seminar (you know, the quiet one with the wall sockets) and having to queue in the tool shed for half an hour while feigning interest in a gap year that you’re obviously ten years too old for.

Follow these simple geeky tips to be economic with your juice and stay on top of the battery game this year:

Make your software work for you, not without you.

This is an easy one! Simply make sure you’re not using power-draining apps and background software that you don’t need.

  • Go to your battery settings and find out what apps are using power. If you don’t need them, close them!
  • Also check out what background apps are running in your settings – close those too. Always close apps from the background after you use them.
  • Switch off wi-fi, tethering, bluetooth, data roaming and push email clients. Also switch from 3g or 4g to 2g (or GSM).
  • Switch off location services and GPS (once you get there!).
  • If you have a high deff or AMOLED screen, make sure your background and lock screen are set to just black.
  • Speaking of the screen, manually set the brightness to the lowest you can handle and drop the timeout/standby time to as low as it will go (usually 15 seconds).
  • Get rid of your phone’s vibrate setting, and put a boring but audible single tone ringtone on instead.
  • Look into power management apps and widgets like ‘Power Control’ or ‘DU Battery Saver.’

Discover new ways of charging your phone.

A few little tweaks, and maybe a little money will go a long way to recharge your phone without having to stand on a friend’s shoulders to reach the maintenance plugs above the loos!

  • Turn on aeroplane mode when charging. Aeroplane mode shuts down the processing power usually used to communicate to towers. This can speed up charging time by 10-25% depending on your phone.
  • Invest in a car charger, and spend 30 mins to yourself in an evening charging your phone. If you’ve got a small petrol engine, then you’ll be wanting to run the car for 20 mins of that time.
  • If you’ve got the option then go for a leisure battery or electric hook up so you can charge at camp.
  • Invest in a decent power bar / portable battery with a high capacity. Amazon are selling Anker E6 20800mAh bars right now for about twenty quid!!!
  • These should charge your phone 3-7 times.
  • Don’t leave your charger anywhere! Not every nice Christian person is a nice Christian person.

Be thrifty with the vanity.

If you’re on camp – be on camp! I’m a big tweeter, instagramer and facebook user, but y’know what? I’m camping!!! so I can use those data-heavy and power-hungry apps when I get home! Bring a digital camera with you instead, or just photobomb everyone else!

How to Create your own Digital Personal Assistant

There seems to be an irrefutable law of physics in the youth work world that the better you are with young people the worse you are with admin.

Admin tends to fall into two categories – the blitz and the habitual. The former is what youth workers can do; the creative once in a while overhaul and setup. The latter is the every day throwing off the monkeys so you can shoot the elephants.

As with most youth leaders I too have sat in the fetal position, sucking my thumb muttering “too many monkeys, too many monkeys!”

I’ve been a youth worker in one form or another for about ten years or so, but it’s only in the past couple years that I’ve started to get my admin, PR and communication world on track. I’ve always been able to do the blitz, but I’ve only just started to get down the habitual… nearly. Sort of.

I have effectively created my own digital personal assistant, who I call Margaret after the West Wing’s Chief of Staff PA. Margaret is a collection of apps and software accessible from all my devices that makes all my habitual admin work.

Or you could raid your youth work budget and hire an actual PA. *lol*

Creating A Digital PA

1. What do we need?

For habitual youth work admin we need:

To be mobile – and have easy access to calenders, notes, to-do lists and contacts wherever we are.
To have easy access – to both read and edit all of the above very quickly.
To have instantaneous access – that will update on every device immediately and not rely on us getting to it later.
To be reminded – of what we’ve got to do and be without having to rely on our own memory.
To communicate – easily, clearly and professionally with all the people we have to work with.
To be available – reachable wherever we are… and not when we shouldn’t be.

2. What do we have?

I have three devices; an iPad (which I only use for note taking and talk notes), a laptop (which I use as my powerhouse hub for creating presentations and doing blitz admin sessions) and a mobile phone with unlimited data (which I use for most of my habitual stuff). The latter two I think are essential.

3. How do we make it work?

The following apps are what I use to make this process work:

Google Calender
By far the best online calender. Available on the cloud and syncable with all major calender apps and devices. I share some calenders with team members, some with my line manager and some with my wife helping me see my whole world in context and communicate to those I need to.

I spend one hour a week updating this on Monday morning, and then lots of 30-second chunks in the week updating it when I have conversations or emails.

Every morning Goggle Calender emails me my daily schedule. I also set up notifications on events to let me know 15 or 30 minutes before I’m supposed to be there. This also gives you an excuse to leave if you’re tied up in a meeting (it beeps).

Finally I use ‘tasks’ on Google Calender to give me to do lists and send me notifications.

Using a calender widget on my phone it takes up to 30 seconds to create or edit a date or task. This means I can do it within a conversation or meeting and not have to remember it again. Well worth it!

Google Contacts
Again syncable with all other major apps like Apple Address Book and your phones contact list. It takes a while to set up but once you’ve blitzed this it takes about 10 seconds to edit.

This is linked to my email, my phone, my calender, notes and tasks so I always have access to every person and group that I need.

It’s worth the extra effort to set up groups.

Dropbox
Dropbox (or google drive for a good alternative) is online flash storage. I keep all my documents on this. Not only can I get to anything I need anywhere but it means I have last minute sessions and talks available if something goes wrong.

The other great Dropbox feature is sharing. I have several folders that I share with other users so we can edit documents together in our own time without making crazy duplicates. I can also share files by creating dropbox download links and emailing them to people – no messing about with attachments.

Dropbox comes with 2gb but you can expand this quite a long way for free (I have 25gb free). It’s worth paying the £60 a year for a 100gb though.

Evernote
Evernote is a simple online note creation and organisation tool that I use for just about everything. I can type, photograph, video or record anything and save the note. Often in talks I will photograph the slides and make notes under it.

It’s searchable and easy to maneuver files into categories. You can access it online, sync it with other note software and has very usable apps. You can also download word processing and pdf attachments to it for easy access in meetings.

Evernote also comes with a dedicated email address so you can email notes directly into your Evernote notebook.

My Evernote phone widget is synced with Google Calender so when I take a new note (often using the very useful ‘speech-to-text’ feature) I can have it opened, labeled, titled, tagged, organized and saved within 5 seconds of picking up my phone.

Evernote allows me to work on talks and presentations wherever I am. I then use the Evernote app on my iPad as my talk notes.

Twuffer
For social media I probably don’t have to mention Facebook apps etc. However if you are a Twitter user and need to get info / prayer requests out regularly I recommend linking your Twitter feed to your Facebook timeline and using a free online app called ‘Twuffer.’

Twuffer allows you to schedule all your tweets in advance – something I do once a month with the help of my calender. This reminds my team and prayer warriors whats happening without me having to remember. Twuffer – unlike other tweet schedulers – does not add or change anything in your tweet.

PaperRater
A really simple online-based grammar, spelling and plagiarism checker – basically an online proofreader. It’s great for a quick scan through before sending long or important emails and is very detailed if you’re writing something more substantial.

The only draw back is you can’t copy and paste your proof-read articles so you have to edit your original – still great for the saved embarrassment though!

So…

Those are all the main things that I use to make up my own PA, Margaret. After the initial setup the upkeep of this is one hour a week Monday morning and an extra hour a month catchup. Beyond that these apps just work wherever I am often carrying no more than a phone in my pocket.

Margaret happily just gets on with her job and all the info I need and need to communicate is as easy as saving a document, sending a text or replying to an email.

Not that I’ve got this nailed yet, but the time and stress this has saved me has been fantastic!

I’d love to hear about any other apps or approaches that you have to habitual admin in the youth work world. Please comment below.

PA Hacks For The Mobile Youth Worker

We already know that Youth Workers are often expected to be all things to all people – and one of those things is ‘expert PA engineer.’

Making sound work for a variety of events and projects in an increasingly multi-media-driven generation is important. Making it work simply is the nightmare! Add to this that the Youth Worker on the go needs to be mobile, needs to get things setup quickly and really needs sound to just work first time, every time.

Rapid, mobile, versatile with plug-and-play usability is the mantra for the Youth Worker PA tool kit! This isn’t a post to compare the very best in large rigs for events and bands (borrow one from your local school!). This is a post of recommendations for small, simple and mobile solutions for the Youth Worker that needs to travel, setup and use multi-media regularly.

There are loads of mobile options for PA Hacks out there – I’m going to give you three.

The Bluetooth Speaker

I travel with a Bluetooth Speaker that is powerful enough to fill a room with about 50 people absorbing the sound. I’ve used it outdoors for a festival seminar with my mobile phone, and for projected cinema nights from my laptop. Every week this travels with me in my laptop bag alongside a travel projector for youth clubs and school assemblies.

Which one?

You need to find the right balance between small and quality. The smaller you go the worse the sound will be, and the larger you go the less battery features and portability it will have. A basic rule of thumb is you need just two internal drivers (speakers) with at least 3 inch diameters. Don’t believe the hype of smaller units boasting big sounds (and charging big bucks for them!). Physics is physics – go and listen to them yourself.

I spent a month researching and testing many speakers including LG, Bose, Philips, Samsung and JVC.

I settled on a low budget 10w version made by Polaroid which is far louder and clearer than the many high end versions, including the high branded sound bars. It’s at ASDA for £40.00 – follow the link, but there’s a new version in store!

It’s well made, has good connectivity and a quality, loud sound for it’s size. It doesn’t overdo the bass (like its many other modern counterparts), and it doesn’t sound thin or tinny at high volumes. It will distort/peak in certain frequencies when turned right up, but for that you need a mobile PA/Combo Amp which we’ll look at next.

The Compact Acoustic Combo Amp

These little amps are portable amp+speaker units that you can carry with one hand and usually give you a couple of high quality channels. I think they are the frequently overlooked but absoltuely ideal option for most venues and uses. I use mine for live sound and music, plugging in a guitar and microphone, or two microphones simultaneously. It easily fills medium to large venues and can be plugged into a bigger PA if needed.

You’re better with an acoustic amp rather than an electric guitar or keyboard amp as they will alter the frequencies and ‘colour’ the sound. An acoustic amp gives you hi fi – or full spectrum – transparent sound, so things will sound the way they’re supposed to!

Which one?

It’s worth saying up front that they are a bit pricey, but – in my opinion – worth every penny!

I use the AER Compact 60 III. Largely considered one of the best acoustic amps in the world. It is easily better sounding and louder than most PA systems that I run across in churches and schools. The AER gives you 2 XLR channels (so 2 microphones), one of which doubles us as a jack (guitar/keys/laptop etc.). I use this every week for leading worship, talks and quizzes. It easily fills large venues and is clear enough to cut through a full band.

The AER also has line outs for extra speakers, DI out for the PA and a basic – but very usable – reverb and EQ feature. Although down in price, now at £749 it will cost you. They also make a battery powered version at £1175. Both of these come with padded cases. I spent an extra £30 on mine to get a fold away stand to lift it off the floor and angle it upwards.

For a slightly cheaper option to the AER with many of the same features, but a bit of compromise in sound quality, consider the Tanglewood T6. This comes in at £395 with 2 very usable channels, a reasonable reverb, DI out and padded bag.

It also has a couple of features the AER doesn’t: An AUX in and a top hat socket underneath so it can be mounted on a speaker stand. Great for a budget!

If you need high sound quality, but more channels then consider writing to the Italian company ACUS for a ACUS ONE 5, 6, 8 or 10. These are small units with amazing build quality and a sound to (almost) rival the German AER. However, they come with more channels, outputs and better reverb.

Ranging from £300 – £1000 they give you far more options too. You can effectively run a full band from it and have it still remain mobile. The ACUS ONE 8 would be my pick for the best balance of features and affordability at £595.

Mobile PA System

The final step up is the mobile PA system. This again needs to fit in your car boot, be easy to transport on foot and quick to set up – however, with the extra versatility of separate speakers and more channels. It’s worth saying up front though that none of these options will give you the clarity of mobile sound that the AER or the ACUS amps will provide.

We have a seldom used mobile PA that comes out if we need a few more channels. It tends to compliment the acoustic amp rather than replace it though. If we need a big sound – we go straight for a big PA… but that’s not what this post is about!

Which one?

One of the best for mobility and sound quality is the Fender Passport. There are a few different options, but the Event model gives you 4 XLR channels and a few other ins & outs. They are built with high quality clip on speakers to make it easy to carry. This is a great model to throw in the car and will happy hosting most medium sized events. The Fender Passport ranges from £265 – £604 – with the Event model coming in at £468.

Other than this you can check out simple and affordable models from JBL, Yamaha or Kam – but honestly I think it’s a better investment to get a decent combo amp and beg/steal/borrow/hire bigger PAs when you need them.
What do you use?

We’d love to hear about your PA solutions for and effective sound! Comment or get involved with the facebook page and let us know!

Rules young people want to add to Social Media

For a young person social media can be a Crystal Maze of awkwardness and mind games – full of traps and ambushes with a prevailing sense of kill or be killed!

We run training for teachers, youth workers and young people themselves on how to stay safe in social media. Yesterday we shook this this up a bit and asked a bunch of young people what new rules or laws they would add to online behaviour.

This question came from the Youth For Christ, Rock Solid Playing Cards. A great resource available here.

Here are their responses, unchanged and unchallenged. What do you think? Particularly think about what fears these answers reveal and how we could respond to them:

– You should not be allowed to comment on something if you haven’t read or watched it through.

– If you wouldn’t say it to their face in front of a crowd, then don’t comment it on their status.

– Keep your opinions to yourself – no liking or disliking it at all.

– You should only be able to publicly comment on a post with the creator’s permission.

– Fake profiles should always have a ‘this person is fake, don’t trust them’ warning on them.

– When feeling bad, you should be able to ask for help and have people reply properly without trolling or silly jokes – real help.

– All comments should be made by video.

– No comments should be anonymous.

– All ‘offensive’ trolling should be banned.

– You should be able to see who is looking at your photos.

– Can’t tag random people without their permission first – or be allowed to share a photo of them anywhere without their permission first.

– Don’t allow friends to talk to you about social media if you don’t have social media.

– Don’t celebrate something others don’t have (like Christmas) in case it offends them.

– Use your real name .

– Stop correcting people’s English.

– No ALL CAPS!

– Ban all manipulative ‘scroll down to ignore, like or comment if you care’ posts.

– Stop trolling everyone!

– Clamp down on internet slang.

– Ban click bait pages that only make you like them just to give publicity to other pages.

– Limit on what & how much you can share – awful posts should be vetted first.

– Too many selfies!!!

– Don’t allow statuses about an ex .

– Don’t allow statuses about ‘people you know’ without saying their names – especially when it’s obvious!

– Clamp down on the crazy amount of likes people get when they have a baby.

– If you’re not a fan of a thing – don’t go on the page to knock it!

– Don’t allow anyone to change their name to ‘nobody’ – to stop the ‘nobody likes this’ gag.

– Two words: farmville requests